Tabletop Adaptation of Printing Press (With Detachable, Relief-Carved Roller)

15x24x13 in.

Steel, cherry wood, lathe-turned granite, felt, toilet paper

2012

I designed and built this press to address issues with my other home-made printing press: the Disjunctive, Dilemmatical Printing Press from the previous year.

When I built the DDPP, I wanted it to be usable by anybody.  However, it’s large size prevented this from happening; the press was really only usable in a gallery with a large amount of open space.  Thus, I decided to build the TAPP as a smaller press that could be operated anywhere.  Its feet have retractable barbs, allowing the TAPP to be securely mounted to a tabletop.  Furthermore, in order to make the press truly usable by anybody, I designed the TAPP to use a readily-available paper source— toilet paper.

More importantly, the DDPP was difficult to ink, since it had no built-in automatic inking system.  To solve this problem, I designed the TAPP’s unique upper roller, which was both relief-carved (allowing it to serve as the printing matrix) and detachable.  Thus, between prints, the operator could remove the roller from the press and roll it through ink, much like a brayer.  The roller then snaps back into place, where it prints the freshly-inked image carved into its surface.